Chetham's Library this Wednesday!

Our next Material Culture Day is this Wednesday (17/10/2012) at Chetham's Library in the city centre, please get there for 1pm, you'll get to see a seventeenth-century printing press in action! Chetham's is 'the oldest public library in the English-speaking world' and it is a real gem: http://www.chethams.org.uk/

Here are some comments from some of the students that attended the first Material Culture Day in the John Rylands Library at Deansgate.

'The dark, gothic, original part of John Rylands Library at Deansgate contrasts magnificently with the ultra-modern white walls and glass of the reception. Although architecturally, these two parts of the library could not be any more different, they allow the centuries old books be read in reading rooms built in 1900 yet still feel contemporary and relevant in cosmopolitan Manchester.  On first being introduced to archivist Fran Baker it was very clear that her enthusiasm for John Rylands’ many collections was infectious. Undoubtedly the tome from the selection of leather bound books which first caught my eye was the Second Folio, a collection of Shakespeare’s works. Its majestic presentation, with gold edged pages, set the volume proudly in its Elizabethan context in a way that an e-book or Norton edition cannot hope to do. The most crucial point I took away from the visit was that the library is for using. It is an extremely accessible place, as long as you make the effort to access it. '

Charlie Rayner

'The library visit to the John Rylands in Deansgate was extremely useful and encouraged much enthusiasm.  The range of beautiful books and archives we were shown displayed the endless amount of resources we have at our finger tips, enabling us to research in an entirely new way.  The trip introduced us to the material culture of early modern culture, and the importance of this.  It gave me many ideas for an essay, as well as inspiring me due to the library’s beautiful interior.'

Kate Pleydell

'The trip to the John Rylands library in Deansgate was important in showing how texts in their earlier forms can change the way we read and interpret them. The librarian, Fran Baker, showed us a selection of archival documents to highlight the importance of seemingly mundane (at the time) artefacts such as shopping lists and diaries that are so precious now in providing context to people’s lives and times that are so distant to and different from our own. The tutors- James Smith, Naya Tsentourou and Bill Hutchins- then also showed us a variety of texts relating to their own expertise and gave us brief insights into the reasons why looking at these texts in their original form rather than modern interpretations creates a deeper understanding of the texts as cultural artefacts. These workshops were overall to show us that, as undergraduates, we are so lucky to have the opportunity to use this resource and look at these beautiful books and that it would be a real shame to waste it. '

Annie Muir